College Snippets

Drafting Your Resume

2014-11-10T10:23:00.002-08:00

Your resume is how you present yourself to businesses and potential employers. Because it's one of the first things people see and read about you, it's important to format it correctly!

When drafting your resume, it should include your core competencies, accomplishments, and past experiences. Make sure you core competencies are at the top, along with a professional summary!

What are you core competencies? They are general and technical skills, things like teamwork, communication skills, analytic thinking, problem solving, interpersonal skills, etc.

What is a professional summary? It is a short paragraph that let's employers know more about you, what you are interested in, and what your future goals are. It helps employers know if you would be a good fit into their business.

Pitching Yourself to Businesses

2014-11-10T10:18:00.003-08:00

What exactly are businesses looking for in employees? They are definitely looking for people that have skills related to the position you are applying to, but even more so, they are looking for general skills that will make you integrate easily into the team.

General skills that employers are looking for are:

Interpersonal Skills
The Ability to Problem Solve
Teamwork Skills
Communication Skills
The Ability to Learn

So next time you are in an interview, remember to mention these skills. Emphasis them more than your technical skills!

Pitch Yourself in 30 Seconds: A Career Guide

2014-10-26T12:10:00.000-07:00

A 30 second commercial to introduce yourself is a perfect way to practice what to say when people at career fairs, conferences, and meetings ask "Tell me about yourself." Try following these bullet points, write down your answers, and practice saying them out loud.

Soon you'll be able to sell your skills in a short time and get better at pitching yourself.

Introduce yourself: Hello my name is __________
State what you are interested in: I am interested in __________
Describe your experience or coursework: I have experience in ___________
State your strongest skills: My strongest skills are ____________
Say your curiosities: I am looking for more information about opportunities in __________

Example:

Hello, my name is Steve and I'm interested in Computer Science. I have experience as a web application developer and have taken courses at State University where I have developed online applications. My skills in analytic thinking, teamwork, and problem solving come into play on a daily basis while working. I'm looking for more information about whether your company is hiring web application developers.

Notice the skills listed are not specific skills in certain technologies, but rather important core skills that employers are always looking for: problem solving, teamwork, communication.

Remember to follow up with your leads, no matter how small.

Some Psychological Lifehacks, thanks to /u/friendly_canadian

2014-05-14T21:55:00.000-07:00

/u/alexzz8 on /r/askreddit posted a pretty intriguing question: "What are some pyschological life hacks that you can to give you an advantage in situations?"

And boy did /u/FRIENDLY_CANADIAN respond:

Fake it till you make it; confidence is more important than knowledge.

Act confident at all times. You may doubt yourself, but so does everyone else. You just have to remember that even though some people might be experts, everyone is just sort of winging it and hoping everything goes alright.

Don't be intimidated by anyone, everyone is playing a role and wearing a mask.

This sort of goes along with the last point. Everyone is winging it. Some are better than others at it. Some have more experience. But you just have to remember that everyone is human, and any failure you make will most likely be forgotten very shortly.

Don't be afraid to ask questions; it makes you look interested, and you will learn something. Anything can be learnt if you put the effort in. Everything anyone knows, they learned along the way. Everyone, even the president. Ask open ended questions to move conversations along. Learn the difference between open and closed questions.

This is such an important point. The only way you can learn is by asking questions.

Go to your managers with solutions, instead of problems. Make their job easier, learn how they work, and then ride their coattails up the ladder.

This is yet another important point: Manager are busy. Just because you don't see them doing work doesn't mean they aren't. They have the expertise to make the business run smoothly behind the scenes. When you have a problem, determine a few solutions to it, weigh them as if you were in charge, and then approach your manager with a convenient solution to the problem. You'll likely be thanked and remembered!

Getting stats from a single post with Google Analytics

2014-05-10T21:09:00.000-07:00

I wanted to better understand what posts people really liked on my blog so that I could deliver relevant content to those who visited, so I decided to look up how to see stats from a single post of my blog. I really wanted to find out where visitors where coming from, why they came, and what they were looking for. Thankfully, I stumbled upon this post:

How to See Stats From a Single Post with Google Analytics.

It gives some really good information with annotates step by step image instructions so you can figure out how to use Google Analytics to your advantage!

DogeSnap

2014-05-07T13:43:00.000-07:00

DogeSnap is a small project I decided to work on for a few days. It's basically this:

1). You upload a photo.

2) DogeSnap attempts to find faces in the photo.

3).

Mantaray AR: Initial Release!

2014-05-04T13:29:00.002-07:00

It's been a while since I've posted on here, but I figured I'd make a post about a project I've been working on called Mantaray AR. We focus on bringing Augmented Reality to educational settings such as the classroom.

We are offering two distinct product lines: Mantaray AR Study Sessions, and Mantaray AR Unlimited. With the Study Sessions, students can download a mobile application that teaches a certain subject using Augmented Reality.

The Main Menu of "Intro to Probability."

Our first Study Session app is "Intro to Probability" where students learn about probability while investigating an oil spill in our unique Augmented Reality experience.

Click on fish to investigate them in our Augmented Reality experience!

Our other product line, Mantaray AR Unlimited, allows teachers and parents to utilize our software in order to create their own Augmented Reality sessions without any programming! We provide a Slide Show like workspace that allows for easy creation of text, questions, and augmented reality experiences!

If you're interested, check out our website and our apps that are available on the App Store and the Play Store!

Michael Scott Today

2013-01-18T08:44:00.000-08:00

I was bored, so I made a new Twitter account: @MScottToday. It's about plot points that would exist if Michael Scott were still on The Office.

Check it out!

Using ImageJ in Your Own Application

2012-12-14T10:17:00.000-08:00

One of the coolest things I've gotten to do at my current job is image analysis and feature extraction. The goal of one of our projects was to isolate single fly embryos from images taken from labs. Doing it is pretty simple and requires very little advanced mathematics, but to do it well, it takes some advanced pixel manipulation.

The Requirements
The Solution
An Example

Make the image grayscaled.

Apply a threshold on it to only get the dark areas. This assumes the lines will always be near black.

Apply a Particle Analyzer to find Ellipses on the image.

Loop through the "Particles" to find ones that fit our criteria.

Get the angle from our Particle.

The major requirement was that the application be available on Mac, Linux, or PC; thus, we chose Java as our language. Likewise, all components of the application needed to be in Java.

Before I had arrived to the group, someone had already rewritten some MATLAB code that was able to extract embryo images from laboratory photos; and so the first step was that the Java code be able to reproduce the results from the MATLAB code. Originally, we had investigated the possibility of simply using the MATLAB code and distributing that, but not every one has MATLAB (especially with its price tag). We then found out about a MATLAB to Java compiler that did little more than just wrap the MATLAB code in a class; in fact, you still needed to have the MATLAB environment running, and on top of that, you needed to recompile the Java code for all platforms you wanted to distribute the application on. It was a horrible mess, so we quickly dismissed MATLAB as the means of distributing the code, and thus, it was agreed that all MATLAB code would need to be rewritten in Java.

With all this in mind, we decided to go with ImageJ. ImageJ is a Java application that focuses on image analysis and processing. Since it was already written in Java, we didn't need to write very much on our own. All we needed to do was download the application, read the license, and use the ij.jar file in our application. The documentation is pretty good online for the library as well.

http://stackoverflow.com/q/11461910/759316

The question was asked "How do I get the angle of these black bars?"

In the link above, you can see the actual code and solution to this question that works the following way:

How the code works:

Make the image grayscaled.
Apply a threshold on it to only get the dark areas. This assumes the lines will always be near black.
Apply a Particle Analyzer to find Ellipses on the image.
Loop through the "Particles" to find ones that fit our criteria.
Get the angle from our Particle.

Joined YouSayToo

2012-12-12T08:21:00.004-08:00

I just rejoined YouSayToo and I'm really fucking confused as to what it is supposed to be. From a first glance, it looks like it has something to do with blogs; but I'm really not sure. It feels like StumbleUpon without the fun. At least StumbleUpon has some cool websites once and a while; you know, if you feel like clicking "Stumble" one hundred and one times.

What ever, here's my referral link or something. I'm not exactly sure what the fuck it does. Something about boosting ranking or something.

Twinkies Reborn

2012-11-16T08:23:00.000-08:00

The company, Hostess, that owns and produces Twinkies has declared bankruptcy and will liquidate its assets. For those who do not know about business, this does not mean the end for Twinkies. When the company sells its assets, it sells it trademarks and recipes, including the Twinkie trademark. The highest bidder will get the rights to the Twinkie trademark and will continue to sell Twinkies.

If I remember correctly, this is actually how Hostess got the rights to Twinkies in the first place.

Prometheus

2012-10-30T13:02:00.001-07:00

While browsing the Internets, I found a hilarious review of the movie Prometheus. If anyone knows the original source, please contact me!

Prometheus is a hilarious comedy in the tradition of "Spaceballs" and "Men in
Black" about a motley crew of forgetful, scaredy-cat scientists who go
into space and try to find their alien creator. They find maps in caves
that are their invitation, but this turns out to be a hilarious trick,
like a mousetrap for retards.

The first scene is a giant, german-looking albino steroid guy who
drinks some coffee out of an ashtray and gets sick and falls in the
waterfall. Special effects reveal that he has little, tiny ladders in
his blood called D&A. This guy looks like a member of the Blue Man
Group, except White. There is a UFO flying overhead that is never seen
or mentioned ever again in the movie. Just one of the many pranks that
the writers and director have put in the movie to trick you with.

Next we meet these two very forgetful and silly scientists and they
get to go into space on a beautiful ship. It is taken care of by a gay
robot who does stuff like dye his hair and dress up like Robocop with a
colander on his head to entertain himself. If C3PO had a human face, he
would be this guy. All of the silly bungling scientists wake up from
hyper-sleep in time to watch a hilarious hologram of a guy in an "old
man" mask that looks like the Emperor from Return of the Jedi. I think
he is wearing the old guy mask to get some laughs from the wacky
scientists, but no one notices it. There is another funny guy with
unconventional hair and tattoos who is really mean to everyone - that's
so true! Guys that look like that are always dicks!

The spaceship starts to land on the planet, and as luck would have
it, lands exactly near the alien castle on the very first try without
even looking around too much - another hilarious example of serendipity!
These guys are so lucky and fun to watch! The crazy scientists go into
the alien castle and two of the guys get so scared that they decide to
go back to the ship and get lost, even though they have flying
superballs that make 3D maps of everything. Those two bungling doofuses!
They are like "Dumb & Dumber" or "Abott & Costello". The rest
of the gang finds more poisonous coffee and somehow the gay robot steals
a whole pot of it without anyone noticing. He's such a Sneaky-Pete!

Everyone has to go back to the ship at the last minute because the
Captian pranks them and waits until a violent storm is nearby before
telling them about it! Haha! This guy is great! The two bungling idiot
scientists get stuck in the castle and decide to goof-off all night.
They try to pet a space cobra that lives in the poisonous coffee, but it
kills them, which I think is what ALL cobras wish to do, space or no.
Meanwhile, back on the ship, the gay robot does a HILARIOUS prank on the
whiny scientist who wears a hipster scarf. He puts a little poisonous
coffee in this jerk's drink and gives him pink eye and diarrhea
(probably). Haha! That's like a whoopee cushion x100! Luckily the
scientist has enough health left to hump his forgetful girlfriend one
last time before he is all the way super-sick from the bad coffee. As
one last prank to his fellow scientists, he suits up and goes back to
the castle with them, even though he secretly knows he is very, very
sick. Haha. What an inconvenience to the rest of the group - the ulimate
prank!

The mean lady burns him later. The forgetful scientist gets pregnant
with a white octopus and has to take it out using Michael Jackson's
special oxygen bed. Now here is where the movie gets really hialrious,
because she TOTALLY forgets that the alien squid is in there and just
leaves to go do some errands! HAHAHA! It turns out that the funny guy in
the old man mask is really hiding on the ship and he does some funny
slapstick "old man walking" with a cane! I love it!

Everyone goes back to the alien castle for yet a THIRD time, this
time to prank the space jockey who lives there. This guy is trying to
take a nap, but they keep buggin him! Man, I hate that too! Anyway, they
wake him up and start yelling at him, but he is SUPER cranky and kills
everybody really fast, exactly the way I would have done it. The funny
guy in the old man mask gets a GIANT bump on his head, just like on Bugs
Bunny when someone gets an anvil dropped on them! Just another
hilarious example of the comedy stylings of Ridley Scott. Luckily,
without too much trouble the forgetful scientist sneaks away and easily
convinces the funny captain to crash his ship into the space jockey's
ship so he can't prank everyone on earth with the old "poison coffee
routine." The mean lady gets crushed because the alien ship starts to
roll like a big wagon wheel and she runs DIRECTLY IN FRONT OF ITS PATH
for big laughs from the audience. Classic slapstick.

Now here is where the set-up with the very, very forgetful scientist
girl really pays off with BIG LAUGHS. She goes back to Michael Jackson's
bed area and it turns out that the alien squid that she forget to throw
in the garbage is now HUGE! This part reminded me of the hilarious
movie "Men in Black" where Will Smith gets alien tentacles wrapped
around him and screams in a high-pitched voice! Classic Sci-Fi comedy
moments all around! Anyway, the forgetful scientist tricks the cranky
nap-albino to go near the giant squid, and guess what? It gets him good
so she can get away once again with plenty of luck on her side. Amazing!

The movie ends when the forgetful scientist makes friends with the
gay robot head that killed her boyfriend and wanted to do the same to
her, but hey - let bygones be bygones. Forgive and forget. They sail off
together in another ship to go have more zany, whacky space-comedy
adventures together! Hooray!

Oh, but wait! At the very, very, very end, an alien hatches out of
the cranky nap-guy's belly and spits out its dentures! I wish the funny
guy in the old man mask had done that too! I can't wait to see this one
again this weekend. I think there are many, many, many other jokes and
riddles that were never explained or that I missed while I was laughing
at the other stuff. Intentional plot holes are the ultimate prank on the
audience. It's like the whole movie just gave you two middle fingers
with simultaneous fart noises.

Ten out of ten stars! See this one with your little kids!

ASU Career Fiesta Review

2012-09-20T13:25:00.002-07:00

The so-called Career Fiesta by ASU was hosted in the Memorial Union this week from Tuesday to Thursday (Sept 18 - Sept 20, 2012), and unexpectedly was a huge disappointment. The Career Fiesta was boasted to be "the largest job and internship fair on the Tempe campus" (ASU Career Services). What they should have said was that it's the largest worst jobs and internships fair on the Tempe campus.

The Career Fiesta should have been called Careers You Don't Want To See Yourself Working At Ever Period (or CYDWTSYWAEP for short). The range of sported careers at the job fair were jobs in the Military and internships at companies like Axosoft and Ameriprise. What they hell do those companies even do?

Axosoft: We make software that helps you do great things.
Ameriprise: Keeping the American Dream alive since 1894.

So Axosoft makes some sort of software and Ameriprise keeps dreams alive. Way to go you two at having some of the most generic slogans ever. This is the best that ASU could get to come to the career fair? Where were the big hitters? Where were Google, Microsoft, GM, Intel, or IBM? Where were the companies that people REALLY want to work for? What about CERN or something? This job fair was a waste of every one's time. Fuck, Panda Express was even at the job fair. Panda Express. This was pathetic.

Sadly, I missed the first day of the career fair since it was on a Tuesday. Who the fuck plans these fucking things? Why is the career fair in the middle of the week in the middle of the day? That's when most people have things like CLASS and WORK. Idiots.

Tuesday had some pretty good businesses at the fair: Apple, Amazon, Boeing, and Honeywell. But I only had time for the career fair on Wednesday and Thursday. And let me tell you, those days were filled with the worst of the worst: Target, some clothing company, and a bunch of businesses that sound fake. The only good one was Dell, and they didn't even have an engineering representative there.

All in all, the ASU Career Fiesta was pretty terrible for people that have any type of skill. If you're looking for an internship that requires little to no skill in any major fields, then the ASU Career Fiesta is for you!

Why "The 2nd Law: Unsustainable" Sucks

2012-09-12T21:17:00.000-07:00

The Muse preorder is available right now, and to promote it, Muse has put "The 2nd Law: Unsustainable" up on YouTube. It comes with a music video; 3:48 minutes of boring, thoughtless, stupid, and utterly awful visual sequences that feels like an automaton put together.

The song is filled with unoriginal cliches of "edgy" song writing and sounds. The song is modeled after the genre of music called dubstep: containing digitized sounds, "wubs" and the infamous drop. The song sports a lifeless, cold, and boner-killing lady that comments on how the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics makes our society... and then a dubstepping robot steps up and wubs "UNSUSTAINABLE."

Did you get it? Did you?! Muse used science to show us that our society is wrong!

Ooooo how edgy, how bold. How can we make even more bold?! THROW IN SOME VIDEO OF THE STOCK EXCHANGE AND TANKS AND SHIT.

FUCK YES.

This shit isn't bold. This isn't edgy. This shit is a weak and watered down version of what a band thinks is edgy and will sell albums. What do people like these days? They like hating politics and love loving dubstep. LET'S JUST SHOVE THAT SHIT INTO ONE SONG AND CALL IT A DAY.

But enough yelling, let me explain why I hate this song.

First off it's boring. The song is clearly trying everything in its power to change a boring political message into something people will want to listen to. There's an orchestra playing sixteenth notes at a fast tempo. The best part of the song is the first 30 seconds before all the shit gets in the way of the strings and soft chorus. The strings become so overpowered by all the other elements that they have no room to breath. There's a chorus, horns, and a bunch of other shit in the way.

And then the vocals begin. The vocals are so dull, boring, and stupid that it I almost couldn't finish the song. A lifeless woman starts talking about the second law of thermodynamics it a monotone voice that's computerized to hell.

And then a compturized shit starts dubstepping around like a child on crack. I'm not even kidding you. The computer starts singing in a stupid voice (and all it says is "UNSUSTAINABLE"), flopping around on the screen like a limp dick. This is what killed the song for me. I'm not one who loves dubstep, but I appreciate it. I've listened to hours of it and I know good dubstep from bad dubstep. And let me put it this way: this song is bad dubstep.

There is so much that is wrong with this song: from the so-called edgy lyrics and imagery, to the horrible attempt at what is clearly supposed to be dubstep.

But many people will defend Muse and their pile of shit by saying things like:

I still don't understand how anyone can not like this. Muse hasn't 'sold out' as some say, or anything of the sort. This is simply the type of music they have decided to use for this album. Their want to constantly write music in a different style, and their actual ABILITY to write incredible music in that style should be enough to put anyone into awe at the epicness that is the Muse.

If you can't applaud the artists song, applaud their ability to constantly evolve the way they want.

DukeJCDC 3 hours ago 11

The problem with this is that they clearly HAVE sold out. Their lyrics are thoughtless and unimaginative, just pandering to what they think people want to hear. Maybe if the song touched on issues that weren't huge topics in the media, I might think that they are truly telling a story that they wanted to tell.

Also, the ability to play multiple styles does not make one great. Many people can play multiple styles of music, and many can do it well. This song sounds like a poor attempt at what is clearly supposed to be dubstep. As evidence to this claim, I'd like to everyone to note the attempt at a dubstep "drop" at 1:30. It's weak compared to most dubstep drops, and the rest of the song is so generic in its style that it sounds like every other dubstep song. Nothing within the song attempts to set it apart from other songs of the genre. No unique rhythm, no clever use of the strings and vocals during the dubstep part. Nothing. And that's what bugs me so much about this song: there's a clear division between the dubstep and the rest of the orchestra and chorus.

There is one comment on the YouTube comments that I actually think spoke words of wisdom; however, due to fanboys, the comment was marked as spam. I'd just like to post it here because I believe this person encapsulates my feelings about this song:

This has been flagged as spam

Sorry to break to you guys, but this is dubstep. Everyone can lie to themselves since they can't enjoy the idea that Muse switched genre. I personally don't like this song, even after listening to it a couple of times. It is pretty bad, honestly. However, compared to this, the song madness is fucking amazing, even if it is pop. Just don't hate muse because they switched, hate them if they make bad music, and don't enjoy the song because it is by muse, enjoy it because it is actually good.

ninja32600 2 hours ago

Background Competency Test Answers

2012-08-31T15:56:00.001-07:00

1. Prove that n is odd iff n2 is odd.

Assume n is odd, then it can be written as k   : n=2k+1, and n2=(2k+1)2 = 4k2+4k+1 is odd.

Assume n2 is odd, then assume that n is even. Since n is even, it can be written such that k : n = 2k. n2=4k2which is even. But that contradicts that n2is odd, then n must be odd.

2. Let A, B be sets. Prove that A-B = AB.

By definition, A-B = AB = AB.

3. Prove or disprove the following statement: “an undirected graph of n nodes and n edges contains a cycle.”

Look into generalizing the problem.
4. If an algorithm A calls an algorithm B with a complexity of calls O(f(n)), and algorithm B has itself a complexity of O(g(n)), which is the overall combined complexity?

O(f(n)g(n))

5. If a C-language function functionA() has a complexity of O(f(n)) and functionB() has a complexity of O(g(n)), what is the complexity of functionA(functionB())?

O(f(n) + g(n))

6. What is the complexity, in Big-O notation, of variable assignments of the following code?

k = 1;
do {
j = n;
do {
   j = j/2;
   k++;
} while ( j < 1);
} while (k < n);

O(n + ln n) =O(n)

7. Consider an arbitrary binary tree where each node is programmed as a C-struct node { int key; struct node * left; struct node * right;} Write a recursive function sum() that when called on the tree’s root, ie. sum(root), it returns the sum of all keys in the leaves of the tree. You may use C-like pseudocode. What is your algorithm’s worst case complexity, in Big-O notation?

function sum(struct node * n) {
if (n==NULL) return 0;
else if (node->left == NULL && node->right == NULL) {
   return node->key;
} else {
   return sum(node->left) + sum(node->right);
}
}

Operating Systems Background Competency Test

2012-08-29T21:23:00.005-07:00

In my Operating Systems class, we took a Background Competency Test written by my teacher to test our abilities and knowledge on proofs, big-O notation and programming.

Let's see how you do:

1. Prove that n is odd iff n^2 is odd.

2. Let A, B be sets. Prove that A-B = AB.

3. Prove or disprove the following statement: “an undirected graph of n nodes and n edges contains a cycle.”

4. If an algorithm A calls an algorithm B with a complexity of calls O(f(n)), and algorithm B has itself a complexity of O(g(n)), which is the overall combined complexity?

5. If a C-language function functionA() has a complexity of O(f(n)) and functionB() has a complexity of O(g(n)), what is the complexity of functionA(functionB())?

6. What is the complexity, in Big-O notation, of variable assignments of the following code?

k = 1;
do {
j = n;
do {
j = j/2;
k++;
} while ( j < 1);
} while (k < n);

7. Consider an arbitrary binary tree where each node is programmed as a C-struct node { int key; struct node * left; struct node * right;} Write a recursive function sum() that when called on the tree’s root, ie. sum(root), it returns the sum of all keys in the leaves of the tree. You may use C-like pseudocode. What is your algorithm’s worst case complexity, in Big-O notation?

For the answers, see our next post!

Fridays

2012-08-23T20:50:00.002-07:00

Since I have the majority of my Fridays free during this semester, I've decided it's time to post some weekly content on this blog.

Tune in tomorrow for some high quality blog content!

Published!

2012-08-01T13:08:00.000-07:00

Finally found out an article I wrote, entitled The Transition Towards Persistent Identities was published in The Science in Society Review by The Triple Helix.

The paper is about how online interaction on the Internet has shifted from anonymity to persistence over the recent years. It highlights the pros and cons of both and attempts to reach a solution by combining the pros of both anonymity and persistent identities.

You can read it here if you want: http://bioaccel.org/Volume8.pdf

SimCity Social Sucks

2012-06-26T19:42:00.000-07:00

Hide NSFW images.

When I first heard about SimCity Social, my first thought was: "Goddamn, I wonder what other things Maxis is up to... Holy Crap, a new SimCity game!" I was fucking confused as hell since Maxis was convoluting the fuck out of SimCity Social and SimCity.

You see, SimCity is the next installment of the SimCity franchise, while SimCity Social is a Facebook game. After almost orgasming after hearing about SimCity, I finally looked into this whole SimCity Social thing. It actually sounded really cool -- "Build cities with your friends," they said.

Well, the truth is out, and the truth hurts. How do I phrase this. This game is a steaming pile of time waste. You start out with a nice little tutorial, all the while going: "When the fuck does this turn into SimCity?" You keep clicking on shit and placing buildings with some hot girl with glasses telling you what to do like some sort of sick porno. After minutes of shit happening on the screen with stars and coins and shit flying around, you finally recover from your seizure and realize that you can finally do what ever you want!

Oh wait, nope, that's the opposite of what happens.

You're confined to a space that an ant would consider too small. We need some lebensraum Maxis. You know, like the Germans. But no, you're confined in a small pathetic piece of land placing houses, businesses and factories. At first you think this is really neat and fun. But then the tutorial ends.

And you naively keep playing the game.

Until you realize, that this game was MADE for you to pay money.

Now we aren't talking about a game where you can pay money to speed up the progress of your city. Nor are we talking about a game where you can pay money to buy extra shit.

No, this game was specifically made so that there comes a point (about a few days into the game) where you need money for shit to actually progress in the game.

Here's your gift back Maxis. Don't worry, it's
in the same condition that I got it in.

There's a bunch of varying types of currency in the game: Simoleons, Goodwill, Experience, Energy, Diamonds, and a shit ton of collectibles. The important two are Energy and Diamonds. You only have so much energy in this game. You use energy to place houses, upgrade, collect money from business, and supplies from factories, and so on. Of course, you don't realize this during the tutorial, because they hardly mention it until the end when they tell you: "Oh yeah, remember how you were doing unlimited shit during this tutorial? Yeah, you can't do that in the actual game."

Oh yeah, here's the other one you gave me.

You get about 1 energy every... 3 minutes or some shit. And since everything takes energy, be prepared to wait an hour or so until you can do something else. But don't worry, that's not the most frustrating part.

The frustrating part is the fucking diamonds.

Fuck.

The.

Diamonds.

Fuck this stupid game mechanic. It's so fucking stupid. It's the dumbest shit in the game. During the beginning of the game, they give you tons of diamonds (tons is like... 10) for you to buy shit, without telling you that you will probably want to save those diamonds to buy shit you'll actually need in the game.

You see, in order to progress in the game, you need to get your friends to play, that way you can use them to fill up employee positions in things like the Police Station or some bullshit like some sort of stupid fucking Ponzi scheme. Fuck you Maxis, I don't want to force my friends to play some watered down version of SimCity. Fuck.

Trust me, everything will require diamonds. Want to buy some land, but don't have permits? Just use diamonds! Where do you get permits? From your friends! What if you don't want to force your friends to play? DIAMONDS MOTHER FUCKER.

You can't even exchange any of your other supplies for diamonds. I was easily raking in 10,000 simoleons every time I checked into my city. But no where could I exchange that 10,000 for say, 1 diamond.

I don't want to waste my time and money buying diamonds to upgrade a virtual city. When I hit 4000 population, I quit.

If they ever want me to play that stupid game again, they'll need to completely revamp the gameplay.

Make diamonds easier to get via surveys that people can actually complete (I attempted 1, but was denied for no reason).
Reward hardwork. We're playing you're shitty game and giving you valuable insight into how to make SimCity better, stop treating us like cash bags.
Add and exchange rate system. Make diamonds buy/sellable/tranferable by players.
Make the game ACTUALLY SOCIAL. Going to your friend's city isn't social; BUILDING a city TOGETHER is. You fucks should understand that. I hope the designers of this game shank themselves.
Fuck that energy shit. If some one wants to waste their whole day playing your game, let them. They're more likely to buy the prettier/exclusive shit if they can actually get a sustainable city made.

Lastly, I just want to say: fuck you Maxis, you made me question whether I should actually buy the next SimCity or just torrent that shit just to fuck you as hard as you fucked us with this game. Seriously, go fuck yourselves.

Mittens Explains It All: Napping

2012-05-18T09:41:00.001-07:00

Mittens Explains It All: Napping: God I love napping. If there is one thing I love, its napping. Even when I'm not napping I think about napping. If there is anyt...

Useful Javascript Libraries

2012-05-11T11:29:00.003-07:00

Anyone that has worked with Javascript know about jQuery, Mootools and Prototype; but there are other Javascript libraries out there that can help speed up development.

$fx()

$fx() is a library for animation with a compact size of less than 4kb. It focuses on animating DOM elements by altering the CSS properties on a timeline.

JScharts

JS Charts is a JavaScript based chart generator that requires little or no coding. With JS Charts drawing charts is a simple and easy task, since you only have to use client-side scripting (i.e. performed by your web browser). No additional plugins or server modules are required. Just include our scripts, prepare your chart data in XML, JSON or JavaScript Array and your chart is ready!

Raphael

Raphaël is a small JavaScript library that should simplify your work with vector graphics on the web. If you want to create your own specific chart or image crop and rotate widget, for example, you can achieve it simply and easily with this library.

Reflection.js

Reflection.js allows you to add reflections to images on your webpages. It uses unobtrusive javascript to keep your code clean.

CSS3 Generator

2012-05-03T23:10:00.002-07:00

There's a nifty little tool available at CSS3.me that gives developers some quick options to generate CSS3 code snippets. This generated code also gives code for nice degrading, so if someone using IE6 comes along and views your CSS3 page, they will still get a degraded version of your styling. Albiet it won't look exactly as you intended, the CSS3 generator attempts to give you code that will work in old version of IE and Firefox.

When you get a chance, check it out and have it do all the work for you! It's a great tool to have bookmarked so that next time your want to quickly generate CSS for gradients or rounded corners, you can simply move some sliders and viola, out comes your CSS3 code.

Rapid Web Development

2012-04-15T21:14:00.000-07:00

Twitter's Bootstrap

2012-04-15T14:54:00.002-07:00

Sometime you come across something so great and awesome, that you can't believe it didn't exist before. And today, that thing is Bootstrap, From Twitter. Bootstrap is "simple and flexible HTML, CSS and Javascript for popular use interface components and interactions."

In a nutshell, Bootstrap, From Twitter is a great framework to start building your own website upon that includes a beautiful layout, buttons, icons, color scheme, and much more that you can start piecing together.

The clean colors, components, and toolbars are great for bootstrapping your development and getting a nice head-start in designing.

Some of the major features that come with Bootstrap are:

A Fluid Grid System
Prestyled Tables
Form Controls
Navigation Components
Javascript Plugins (such as a Carousel)

If you want to kick start your web application development, go check out Bootstrap, From Twitter!

Trying Out New Styles

2012-04-07T10:42:00.002-07:00

When I usually design a website, I stick to a few rules:

Stick with neutral colors.
The majority of people like blue, so use it as the accent color.
The Header and Navigation should go on top and take up as little room as possible.
The main content should take up the most space.

So when I started making a small webpage for my resume and projects, I decided to try a few different things for once:

No gray allowed.
No blue allowed.
Put the navigation on the left.

The main content is still the focus, but the rest of my rules are now being replaced. Currently, here is the layout of the website: